Medical errors are the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States. Deaths from medical errors occur at a rate greater than deaths from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer or AIDS. A report from the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine cited studies showing that thousands of people die each year because of the medical errors. The medical errors account for a huge loss in terms of time and money.
The cause of a large number of medical errors can generally be attributed to a manual or partially automated process employed in a medical facility for loading a medical data concerning a medical object. Considering an existing workflow in a hospital, loading of the medical data is often a manual process. One of the methods for a surgeon to get information about a scheduled medical procedure is by enquiring the medical object in person. Alternatively, a medical image of the medical object concerning the medical procedure may be displayed on, for example, a light box.
In a workflow where a partially automated process is involved, a unique identifier is associated with the medical object upon scheduling the medical procedure. The unique identifier comprises one or more identification details of the medical object. Further, the medical image of the medical object is displayed in a mobile cart.
The primary limitation in the conventional process involved in procuring and loading the medical data, is a possible occurrence of a medical error. For example, the medical error can involve a wrong selection of the medical object or a mix up of the medical data of one medical object with the medical data of another medical object. The wrong selection of the medical object can lead to a wrong medical procedure being administered on the medical object. The mix up in the medical data can lead to critical medical errors such as operating on the left knee instead of the right knee, or operating on the brain instead of on the abdomen.
Hence there exists a need for providing a system and method for ensuring a match between the medical data and the medical object while loading the medical data concerning the medical object, in order to avoid medical errors.